This article pertains to installing Arch Linux on the [http://www.msi.com/ MSI] Wind U120 netbook. It does not cover the entire installation process, but rather any quirks that are above and beyond what you might encounter during a routine Arch installation.

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This article pertains to installing Arch Linux on the [http://www.msi.com/ MSI Wind U120] netbook. It does not cover the entire installation process, but rather any quirks that are above and beyond what you might encounter during a routine Arch installation.

'''Note:''' You may need to enable the webcam (Fn+F6) before the above applications will work.

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'''Note:''' You may need to enable the webcam ({{ic|Fn+F6}}) before the above applications will work.

=== Hard Drive Clicking/Ticking ===

=== Hard Drive Clicking/Ticking ===

SATA power management settings are aggressively conservative by default. This can produce a clicking or ticking sound every few seconds as the hard drive head attempts to 'park' itself. Not only is this annoying, it can shorten the life of your hard drive. To avoid this:

SATA power management settings are aggressively conservative by default. This can produce a clicking or ticking sound every few seconds as the hard drive head attempts to 'park' itself. Not only is this annoying, it can shorten the life of your hard drive. To avoid this:

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Install the '''hdparm''' utility:

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[[pacman|Install]] the {{pkg|hdparm}} utility.

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# pacman -S hdparm

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Add the following to ''/etc/rc.local'':

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Add the following to {{ic|/etc/rc.local}}:

# lowest SATA power management setting, highest I/O performance

# lowest SATA power management setting, highest I/O performance

hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda

hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda

Line 167:

Line 165:

* [http://www.msimobile.com/ MSI Notebook Official Website]

* [http://www.msimobile.com/ MSI Notebook Official Website]

* [http://msiwind.net/ MSIWind.net] - Community website dedicated to MSI Wind netbooks, includes forums and a wiki

* [http://msiwind.net/ MSIWind.net] - Community website dedicated to MSI Wind netbooks, includes forums and a wiki

Revision as of 10:45, 1 September 2013

This article pertains to installing Arch Linux on the MSI Wind U120 netbook. It does not cover the entire installation process, but rather any quirks that are above and beyond what you might encounter during a routine Arch installation.

Installation

Consult the standard documentation ( official and unofficial) on Arch Linux installation for general installation steps. What follows are items of particular interest to U120 owners.

Dual Boot Windows/Linux

The U120 ships with three partitions (sizes are approximate):

4GB hidden partition containing system recovery information

35GB Windows XP Home system partition

90GB empty partition for general storage

If you wish to retain Windows XP, choose the manual partition method during the Arch installation and change only the third partition (sda3). You can also use a partition management program to resize the Windows XP partition before installing Arch Linux. This author used a GParted Live CD to reduce the XP partition to 25GB prior to installing Arch.

Kernel Modules (Drivers)

For the most part the hardware should Just Work™. Hardware-specific modules include:

Advanced Configuration

Touchpad

Hotkeys

Most hotkeys are properly detected by the kernel out-of-the-box and XF86 aliases (XF86AudioMute, etc.) are automatically assigned to most hotkeys as well . The following hotkeys do not produce keycodes, however they do function as intended:

Note: You may need to enable the webcam (Fn+F6) before the above applications will work.

Hard Drive Clicking/Ticking

SATA power management settings are aggressively conservative by default. This can produce a clicking or ticking sound every few seconds as the hard drive head attempts to 'park' itself. Not only is this annoying, it can shorten the life of your hard drive. To avoid this: